continuous learning, employee engagement, onboarding

Increase Engagement In 3 Simple Steps

Your organization has spent a good deal of time and money in creating an employee training and development program. Maybe you even set up a fancy brand name LMS. On paper everything looks great right?

In reality – no one wants to participate.

It’s not that employees don’t want training, it’s that they want it to be specifically relevant to what they do on a daily basis. They want information to be dynamic, specific, engaging, collaborative.

There are three simple changes you can make to your learning/onboarding/instructional content to address these desires and see an increase in employee engagement:

Show It: Treat your learning platform just like you are trying to sell a product by utilizing imagery. A high-quality image immediately engages users. To get images that are unique and brand-specific, consider spending a little on a photographer.

A word of caution, this isn’t the time to explore your artistic or clever side, an image needs to make it clear what information you are trying to convey.

Let Your Users Be The Star: Show the content or process being used by one of your employees, preferably from someone who is recognized with a job that is relevant to the topic being discussed.Featuring an employee adds a particular relevance. People like to follow first adopters so choose someone who is well connected and has some influence in the company but is outside the C-Suite. This removes pressure users could feel to do something “because the boss is.”Ask employees to send you videos/photos of them showcasing what they learned. (With material reviews, you can ensure that all of the items uploaded are workplace-appropriate.)As part of the presentation, solicit feedback. People don’t want to be “lectured to,” they want to participate in a conversation. It can be anything from feedback akin to Facebook and Instagram “likes,” to a more crowdsourced, social learning experience.

Showcase the Features: Do your employees truly understand how to create the best learning experience from an LMS and the content it holds for them? Show off the features of your learning/training/onboarding. Let employees understand how it works and, perhaps more importantly, why they need to participate. What’s the benefit to them?

Make it look and feel like t he information sources that they use outside of work.

Now, you may not see an increase in engagement overnight, but keep at it. A change will come if you give employees the information they need, when they need it, and how they want it.